The Dr. Hyman Show - Big Ag, Pesticides & The Food System Keeping You Sick | Ian Somerhalder

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

You probably know Ian Somerhalder from The Vampire Diaries or Lost, but these days, he’s on a mission far bigger than Hollywood. Ian has dedicated his time and platform to tackling some of the most pressing issues of our time—our broken food system, soil depletion, and the health crisis caused by industrial agriculture. In this episode of The Dr. Hyman Show, we explore: How Ian’s passion for regenerative agriculture was shaped by his childhood and family history. The alarming impact of pesticides on human health and the environment. Why farmers are stuck in a toxic cycle—and how regenerative farming offers a way out. How shifting just 10% of U.S. farmland to regenerative practices could transform our health and economy. The powerful connection between soil health, gut health, and disease prevention. Ian’s journey proves that real change starts with what’s on our plates. Don’t miss this inspiring conversation. View Show Notes From This Episode Get Free Weekly Health Tips from Dr. Hyman Sign Up for Dr. Hyman’s Weekly Longevity Journal This episode is brought to you by Seed, Fatty15, Perfect Amino, AirDoctor, and Pique. Visit seed.com/hyman and use code 25HYMAN for 25% off your first month of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic. Pre-order The Longevity Nutrient today, wherever books are sold.  Get pure essential amino acids today. Go to bodyhealth.com and use HYMAN20 to get 20% off your first order. Get cleaner air. Right now, you can get up to $300 off at airdoctorpro.com/drhyman. Head to piquelife.com/hyman to get 20% off + a free beaker and frother today.

Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman show, but why are we sending 80 billion dollars of? American farmers money overseas. Yeah, it's just the system is set up for us to fail and this isn't like some conspiracy theory You're just looking at data. Yeah, I mean it's true when we start injecting 50 to 80 billion back in the Middle America Well, that's gonna be the reindustrialization of middle America. It's gonna change our economy It's gonna be amazing farmers are gonna be able to go down to that local Chevy dealership and get a new car. So you're saying regenerative farmers actually will be more successful economically by switching from our industrial agricultural practices, which destroy the soil and produce commodity crops that go into processed food that make us sick.

That make us sick. And you're saying by switching over, it's not just sort of crunchy granola, organic agriculture. Nothing crunchy about it. It's actually a better economic model for the farmers and for the country And you're saying by switching over, it's not just sort of crunchy granola, organic agriculture. Nothing crunchy about it. It's actually a better economic model for the farmers and for the country because we're not shipping our dollars overseas to buy all these chemicals and seeds from foreign companies and fertilizer companies, which are global. And keeping our population sick.

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That's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you. If you're looking for data about your biology, check out Function Health for real-time lab insights. And if you are in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, check out my membership community, the Hymen Hive. And if you're looking for curated and trusted supplements and health products for your health journey, visit my website at drhymen.com for a summary of my favorite and thoroughly tested products. Welcome to the Dr. Hyman Show. Today we have a pretty cool guest who I first saw watching Loss, one of my favorite TV

shows back in the 2000s and the early 2000s. He's best known for those roles and his like iconic shows like Loss and the Vampire Diaries, Ian Summerholder. And he's the co-founder of a company called the Absorption Company. It's a revolutionary supplement company formulated for increased absorption of nutrients and he's a co-owner of Brothers Bond Bourbon, which I think the supplement company might be an antidote to the bourbon company, I don't know. The main thing we talk about is his work on executive producing number of

documentaries that I've been in Kiss the Ground and Common Ground and an upcoming documentary called Ground Swale, which highlights regenerative agriculture and its role in solving so much of our global crises around climate and health and much more. He's a character. I love him. He's more. He's a character. I love him. He's brilliant. He's smart.

He's funny. And, uh, we get into a great conversation about a lot of things that really matter today, which is how we shift our world from one that's destructive to regenerative. So let's jump right in. Well, Ian, it's amazing to have you on. We've been talking about this for a long time and, uh, you, you have a quite an amazing sort of scope of what you're doing in your life

that's sort of shifted from acting to really trying to change the world. You try to focus on fixing the agriculture system to looking at people's nutrition and starting a supplement company. It's been quite an amazing journey. I first kind of got into it lost and that was my favorite show.

It was mine too until they killed me. I was sort of addicted to it and you've kind of moved away from that whole career acting to do stuff that really matters in a way that I think is consequential and thanks man you know we've worked together on a couple of films Kiss Common Ground. Thank you for lending your amazing, powerful voice because you really, you changed the game for us on both of those films, so thank you brother. Yeah, they were so important. For those who don't know those films,

those are films Kissed to Ground and Common Ground were really consequential films that have sort of helped us understand the role of how agriculture could make a big difference in fixing our climate, soil, health, food. How did you sort of shift from acting to that? Can you kind of tell us, walk us down that path?

Yeah, by the way, I just want to say how incredibly grateful I am to be here with you. Congratulations on the book and this amazing career. But I think we're effectively doing the same thing. Yeah. You're actually, cause you are big, it's not just the understanding of science and of medicine that you understand.

You're also a policy guy. You understand how Washington works, you know, things. I don't know if anybody can understand that. Well, no, exactly, but that's why, you know, you've been so instrumental in this. And I just want to thank you for taking all that information. It's a lot of energy. I see how hard you work.

And we are actually moving the needle. And what's been so amazing about getting into this whole regenerative ag thing is, because I see it when I'm in DC, and I know you see it too, both sides are coming together. That's right. And that's the thing is they're doing this. They found something that is meaningful to both sides because it's meaningful for the

country. And I'll definitely get into the question you just asked, but like, I think for you and I both, you know, I've had all these conversations and calls and emails and stuff, looking for endorsements of all these candidates and stuff. And I'll tell you, one of the things I realized, and you know, Josh and Rebecca and I talked about this. Josh and Rebecca are the filmmakers who made

Kiss the Ground. The directors and producers and writers of the films of Kiss the Ground and Common Ground and Ground Swell was that as long as we stay laser focused on building systems that are impervious to, let's call it regime change, because at the end of the day, it's the same, I've said this to many heads of state, at the end of the day, they're regimes,

they come in, they change. So you work so hard to get something done, someone else comes in. And what I was saying to some of the president's guys and gals, and then also to my Republican sisters and brothers in DC was, so listen, if you had a company, right, whether it's a Fortune 500, Fortune 50 company, whatever, and you had a CEO that came in every four years and you busted ass to create all these amazing scenarios where the company does well, but every four years another CEO comes in and just gets rid of those.

The company would never work. First of all, your shareholders would be freaking out. That's right. It just wouldn't work. So why all, your shareholders would be freaking out. That's right. You know, it just wouldn't work. So why do we run our country that way? It's quite interesting, right? You mentioned Lost. Do you realize it's been 20 years since that show premiered?

It was, I think, September 21 or September 22, 2004. And, you know, we still look the same. But in that span of those 20 years, going from Lost into a very humbling experience, which was the, I forgot what we called it, Spenter, it was like the intermediate period between Lost and Vampire Diaries, which was about three and a half years.

What Vampire Diaries, which was about three and a half years. What Vampire Diaries did was it built a massive global platform for me to stand on, because it's been seen by something like 1.2 billion people, not views, people. So at the end of the day, if you just look at it from a numbers perspective. I have to admit, I'm not one of those people. Yeah, I'm sure.

No, I'm sure. A different generation. I'm sure, it's a different generation. But I didn't watch Lost. But if you look at that, it's one in eight people on the planet have seen or somehow intersected or interacted with this material. And it gave you a chance to have a big voice.

A big voice. And I think if you get a big voice, but then you're inspiring people with the things that you care about That are actually there for the betterment of not yourself But for the community around you or for the global community around you. I think that's where it's Really valuable and I and I sit there your family was very into this like your your kind of have some Native American heritage You have my mom your mom. Yeah, my mom. Your mom was into Eastern stuff.

Choctaw. I grew up with Eastern medicine. Yeah, and so you were predisposed to thinking about health and wellness in a different way and the relationship with nature. From the get-go. Right, and so something happened to you where you were like,

gee, I want to really focus on how we make the planet a little bit better and take care of the Earth and fix our agriculture System and our food system and what was that kind of moment for you from the very beginning? Yeah, actually I just called my mom on the way here because I mean, you know, listen you're not to sound sort of cheesy But you are literally like the most famous doctor out there in the world people know you mentioned your name Oh, wow, you know, and so I just to my mom, I was coming to do the show and she goes, oh, wow.

Oh my God, I love him. Please tell him I said hello. But I called her to thank her because I just, we just walked through this and this is the 32nd version. And this is why it's so important for people and parents to give their children amazing experiences because now, I mean, dude, I'll be 46 next month, or you know, in like a month and a week.

And I just called my mom on the way over here. Just a baby. Yeah, right? I'm gonna be 65 in the next, I know. And then you look 45, that's what's so cool about it. But I called her to thank her, I said, you know what's crazy?

I get to go do this and sit with someone like Dr. Mark Hyman because you showed me very early on, and I'm talking the early 80s, the importance of nutrition and how you can heal your body and heal land with this. My dad gave us the nature balance because I grew up on a marsh, but my mom comes from the farming family.

And not to say anything disparaging about my family, but the chemical side of my family, my uncle, so my aunt, my mom's sister, they were very successful farmers in Dumas, Arkansas. And he was like the number one crop duster in the whole state. So I grew up, you know, that's where I was. I call it crop dusting, but it's more like

spraying pesticides and everything. I don't know why they call it crop dusting. I know, exactly. There's no dust in there. So my more like spraying pesticides. Exactly. I don't know why they call it crop dusting. I know, exactly. There's no dust in there. So my sister and my cousin used to stand in the fields and hold the orange flag so we know where to go. And my dad knew a lot about chemicals and he would say, Ian Joseph, get inside, get inside.

Well, our family is really healthy and thriving. My dad's 84 and still lifting his Olympic set. My mom is crushing. That side of the family, bless her dear amazing soul. My aunt passed last year. Her husband also too did. My cousins have all sorts of neuro, or degenerative issues.

Because of the exposure to the pesticides. Exposure to the chemicals. Yeah. And everything from Parkinson's to CPOD, to all of that stuff. You know, farmers have the highest rate of Parkinson's. It's their biggest risk for that disease is being a farmer.

And then look at what happened with Gabe, by the way, what you did with Gabe Brown, our brother. Yeah, he's doing amazing. He's doing amazing. Again, you can look at that and you can say, I mean, that was you, Dr. Mark. You said, listen, here's how we fix this. And we need Gabe Brown around.

ALS cannot take Gabe Brown from us. So you ask how that happened, just bringing it all back to why, the why, the why. Building, I own a whiskey company too, but it allows me to speak on, you know, I understand grain and I understand agriculture a great deal. We go through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds

of thousands of pounds of it a day. And the great thing about it is, is if you break it down, look, there's 200 million grain acres in this country, production acres. I mean, there's more, but we'll just use it as a benchmark. If you're looking at regenerative ag up to about a $400 an acre savings, multiply $400 times 200 million,

it's 80 billion a year that we send to Monsanto, which is German now, and Singenda, which is Chinese. And so when you're in DC and you're listening, everyone complaining about balance of trade. Those are chemical and seed companies for those who don't know yet. Right, exactly, sorry. But why are we sending $80 billion

of American farmers' money overseas? So when we start injecting 50 to 80 billion back in the middle America, well, that's gonna be the re-industrialization of middle America. It's gonna change our economy. It's gonna be amazing. Farmers are gonna be able to go down

to that local Chevy dealership and get a new car. Tax base is gonna go up. School districts are gonna get better. Water districts are gonna get better. After school programs are gonna be implemented. Parks, all that stuff's gonna get better. So it's this very positive cascade. And there's money in the pool, right?

But it's money that they made. They feel good about themselves. On top of. So you're saying regenerative farmers actually will be more successful economically by switching from our industrial agricultural practices which destroy the soil and produce commodity crops that go into processed food that make us sick.

That make us sick. And you're saying by switching over, it's not just sort of crunchy granola, organic agricultural protection. Nothing crunchy about it. It's actually a better economic model for the farmers and for the country because we're not shipping

our dollars overseas to buy all these chemicals and seeds from foreign companies and fertilizer companies which are global. And keeping our population sick. And the farmers get stuck in this horrible trap between the banks that need to give the loans to buy the seeds and the chemicals and then they need to get those loans from the bank seeds and the chemicals and then they need to get those loans

from the bank to get the crop insurance and they're stuck in this vicious cycle where they can't get out of. But there's a bridge out from that to regenerative agriculture which is now being implemented through policy changes in Washington, through some of the $20 billion that Kiss the Ground was part of getting and in our non-profit food.

How cool is that? Yeah, Food Fix Campaign was involved in helping to push that legislation. And so we're seeing sort of the support. It can be pulled back and there's like always fighting about it, but there's more and more interest. I met with Senator Boozman from Arkansas and Congressman Randy Fenstriah from Iowa,

Republicans who are seeing the problems with climate, seeing the problems with the soil, seeing the problems in the rural communities, seeing the problems with the farmers and how they're really subverting their own wellbeing by doing the practices that they're doing and how interested they are in changing. So how do you see the movement shifting? It's been, I don't know, it's kiss the ground's been four or five years, right?

And we've seen real changes over that time. The needle has moved so much. So when we, so we released Kiss the Ground, I think in December of 2019, because it was right when VWars released, it was right at my birthday. I want to say there's about a quarter of a million acres of regen here.

Now there's 39.9 million Quarter million to 39 million. That's incredible We've moved the needle very quickly and we're we're getting up to that hundred million acre mark, right? That's why we launched hundred million acres org The idea is is getting companies not to upset their bottom lines or the shareholders But the idea is to really make a commitment to shift a small portion of their supply chain to regenerative, and ultimately what ends up happening is we get to that 100 million mark, right?

There's about a billion acres farmed in the US. So if we're looking at 100 million, that's 10%. We know that's the threshold. It'll never go back from there, because again, at the end of the day, pardon my French, I'm not trying to sound rude, but money talks, bullshit walks. You show farmers and communities

that they can make more money while healing themselves and the planet. The other side of that is- And produce better quality food. Produce better quality food. So think about this, and you would know this better than I would. And more food.

And more food, right? You would know this better than I would, and don't quote me on the statistic, but I wanna say it was maybe 2020, maybe it was 2019. We spent $447 billion on diabetes. Yeah, over a billion dollars a day. Exactly, but that's not something that you're really born with to my understanding.

No, I mean, it was very rare. I mean, it's the food system. And yeah, if you look back in the records in 1800s and Harvard Medical School and hospitals there, there was just like almost no cases. And then it just started skyrocketing after we started industrializing food. We can run a parallel to the hockey stick of the use of

creation of sweeteners in our food system and what have you. This is what I always talk about in Washington too. As our public health gets better, our public health care costs are gonna come down precipitously. Can you imagine what we could do in this country injecting 50, 80, $100 billion back into it without using agrochemical companies.

And then the savings of sometimes almost a half a trillion dollars in disease care. Yeah. The numbers don't lie. And it would just be this flourishing economic giant. And we're headed there. It's true, it's a cascade effect. Because really you gotta start on the farm.

And if you don't start on the farm, by the time it gets to your fork, you're not gonna have what you need to keep you healthy. So you gotta fix the whole system from field to fork. Exactly, and that's one of the things, when we were building out the absorption company, when you're looking at this data, and the data don't lie, you're realizing how little,

so not only is our food system broken with all the processed foods, and it's pretty much at every touch point. You know what I mean? From our municipal water being used to our detergents, malates and all this stuff, our gut microbiome is destroyed and it's destroyed for our kids.

And so we, it's, and I'm not trying to laugh, it's actually not funny, but it blows my mind. We wonder why there's chronic disease, we wonder why people have skin issues, mental health issues, we wonder why there's all of these neurological issues with our young ones. It's just, the system is set up for us to fail. And this isn't like some conspiracy theory,

you're just looking at data. Yeah, I mean, it's true. When we were building the absorption company, we're looking at the data, and you're looking at, from a supplement perspective, only 84%, I mean, sorry, 84% of the things that you ingest are not being absorbed. Yeah.

So, if you're looking at it from a purely a numbers perspective, you're saying 16% of what we take we actually get now What that tells me is That there are billions of Dollars being spent a year heart hard-earned dollars tens of billions Are being spent by hard-working people like us or my parents. Listen, man, I grew up on the poverty line in Louisiana.

We were so poor. We had everything though. We had the bounty of the marsh and the rivers and then we had nature. That's what fed us. But billions of dollars are being spent on things that don't work. And that just did not sit right with Nikki and I.

It just didn't. And our team, and that's why, you know, look, I'm not a scientist. I'll leave that to the scientists. The science to the scientists. We just knew something was wrong with the system. So you can draw direct parallels between the food system and the supplement industry and the medical industry.

Totally. And so, like what we're talking about, and by the way, two of the other amazing sports systems we had in Indiana, Barrett and Braun as well, have been so awesome with us, with Kiss the Ground and with Common Ground in particular. Those amazing introductions, Rick Clark, our brother Rick Clark.

He's a farmer, yeah. Rick Clark is- He's a massive corn, our brother Rick Clark. He's a farmer, yeah. Rick Clark is- He's a massive corn, industrial corn farm to regenerate culture. We sent Rick Clark to testify in Congress in a congressional testimony, and he just basically said, listen guys, I am a lifelong Republican

and I am a farmer, and I've got about 7,000 acres, and I save about $2 million a year. That's right. And everyone called BS BS and they said, well, what, that doesn't make any sense, how? And he goes, well, I don't use pesticides, fungicides, herbicides or fertilizer. Bam.

Yeah. And this- And produce the same amount or more of the crop, better quality. Heirloom, thousand year old genetics, the whole thing. And the congressional chamber was silent. Were you there? No, we've filmed the whole thing.

And it was really powerful. And again, that's the beauty of it. And that's the thing that Rick and we were talking about with every member of Congress, we can stitch this country back together through its food. And that's why. Well, it's not a Republican or a Democrat issue. This is really something that affects everybody

across every spectrum of society. Absolutely. We're all sick. Disease doesn't say, oh, you're red or blue or purple. It's basically killing all of us. I mean, 80% of our healthcare costs are more for chronic disease, it's mostly preventable and it's mostly caused by food.

And it's from how we grow the food to how we process the food to how we consume the food. And it's really a systemic problem that has to be fixed. And I think the regenerative agriculture piece is such a key piece of this. And people don't often think about food and farming. They think about the food, but they don't think about the farming part. We got to fix the farming in order to fix the food.

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We are the same biological process as the planet. You think about it like We are the same biological process as the planet. You think about it. Like, the trees are our lungs. You know, the vital river systems and oceans and lakes and streams are the vital, the cardiovascular system transporting all those nutrients around the organism. And so when you start cutting all the trees and you start damaging all the water systems, the organism can't survive, right?

Well, I think another thing, a parallel that people don't draw, and this is something, again, building out these formulas. Just to back up a little bit, Ian, you've been focused on a lot of things, regenerative agriculture and the films, but you're a whiskey company and you created a company that helps people get nutrients that they're not getting from the crappy food we get,

which is called the absorption company. And it's powdered, delicious actually, which I'm drinking right now, supplements that are highly bioavailable because they're formulated in a different way. And that's what you're talking about, just so people know. Exactly, yes. We have a patented piece of technology

that allows us to take lipids and turn them into a water-soluble nanometric particle with up to 500% more bioavailability. Now. And in English, that means it's absorbed better. Than pretty much anything. That's why it's called absorbability. I mean, other than an IV, right?

Like, we can't argue that. Anyone can try and pick that apart and go, well, you can get it through an IV. We're talking about in your car driving to work. Yeah, yeah. And so- You're not gonna hook yourself up to an IV in your car or an Uber, right?

You know, but it has really been an amazing journey and it's the tech that allows us to take, you know, the patent is in lipids, not liposomes. But when you start talking about lipid encapsulation and the ability for it to just, in layman's terms, absorb. So at the end of the day, you feel it. And you feel it fast. And we live in a world now where it's 5G and this,

and the train, everything runs on time. And if the plane is delayed six minutes, you're all upset. We live in a world where that's existing. We're not gonna change that, but what we wanna do, you feel this and you feel it fast. And that's all that we want for people to listen. Whether you're a high school student studying for exams or you're a C-suite executive of a Fortune 500 company,

or you're an electrician like my dad. Up on a high rise in the middle of the winter, you need two things to get through your day. You need to feel good, and you need energy. You cannot run a family or a business in deficit. And that's why the absorption company kinda came in. We launched in a really huge way. We actually pulled the reins back.

We went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't wanna grow that fast. And now going into the innovation side of it, is where it's really getting crazy. Because of the nanometric technology, Dr. Mark, I cannot wait to send you some of these samples. I mean, I'm going going we're diving so deep into amino acids

Into proteins into getting things into people's body that they can absorb Really fast and feel immediately well really connects to the whole agriculture piece because the way we've Farmed has really caused the soil to be damaged in such a way that it kills the microbiome and the life of the soil. And you need the microbiome of the soil for the plants to absorb the nutrients. It's a symbiotic relationship. And so we're seeing even when you eat vegetables, I think not even processes,

but they're much lower in the nutrients than they were even 50 years ago. And we're seeing this scientifically. And what's striking is the amount of nutritional deficiencies we have in America is very stunning. I- As far as global super, I mean, as far in America is just stunning. I, I, I. As far as global super, I mean, as far as developed nations, right?

Yeah, I mean, obviously it's very bad in the developing nations. And I was recently, I had a chance to talk to Bill Gates about this and he was talking about his bullion cubes, like they sort of supplement with vitamins so they can provide this at scale in the developing world. And it's helping solve a lot of the nutritional deficiencies

there that kill a lot of people, like lean, but I said to him, you know, Bill, there's also massive nutritional deficiencies in America. He's like, no, there's not. And I'm like, yes, there is. Yeah. Let me show you the data. And Haynes data, which is the National Health and Nutrition

Examination Survey that looks at, you know, Americans and a same as, you know, tens of thousands of Americans that's their lab testing determines, you know, what health issues they have. There are significant deficiencies, over 90% are deficient in one or more nutrients, omega-3 fats, vitamin D is 80%, 90% omega-3 fats, 45% magnesium, iron, zinc, folate.

And people don't think it's really an issue, but it is. I co-founded a company called Function Health, which allows people to get access to their own lab data. It's quite amazing. I was just talking to a friend who did the testing, and she's 35, pretty healthy, eats well, exercises, doesn't eat junk food. She was massively nutrition-efficient. She had super low zinc, super low iodine, low iron, low vitamin D. You know, you're suffering from all these things

and you feel like, you feel great because you don't have these nutrients. And part of it has to do with the fact that they're so depleted in our food supply and so this is an interesting model. How do you kind of- This is why we built this company. Exactly that.

So we have to fix agriculture and we have to fix food. I mean, ideally if we're all eating great food from regenerative farms that was grown the right way, we might not need vitamins, but that's not happening. There's not happening for a long time. There's nothing more than I think this, my team, my absorption company team would love, which is not going to happen, but it's like,

if everyone was healthy, we'd be out of business, but everyone would be healthy. I could go find another job. The one parallel I wanted to draw that I forgot to get to is that biological process. So think about this. Soil and its ability to not only just grow healthy food, but to biosequestor carbon,

is directly related to this health of the soil microbiome. Right. And you're the doctor, not me, but from my understanding, the human body is only as healthy as the gut microbiome. That's right. So you've got these two ubiquitous figures on the planet Earth. And they're connected.

That require the exact same thing. And if we draw those parallels, we live in this wildly developed nation that lives on the drip of agrochemicals because the congressional, the lawmakers have allowed that to happen. And that's the thing for anyone listening or watching. When we made Common Ground.

And everybody should watch it, it's on Netflix, right? No, so Kiss the Ground was on Netflix for a long time. We pulled that off of Netflix. We love and appreciate Netflix. And we're repackaging everything and it's going on Amazon. Oh, on Amazon, amazing. And it's a big deal. It's a really big deal.

And I'm just, I'm over the moon. Like I just got chills thinking about it because we're looking at just from a numbers perspective, how many people, you know, look, we got to give, we gave Kiss the Ground away to 45 million students globally for free. Common Ground, I think we're giving away to 145 million students for free.

Yeah. It's a huge amount of numbers. I mean, it's been seen by a lot of people. It's been seen by a lot of people. But when we were making that, one of the biggest things that we got to do was, and for anyone listening, if this piques your interest, we got to show, through our team

and Rebecca and Josh's super hard work, we get to show, through investigative journalism, how basically, I'm just gonna say, I'll leave out the name, but the agrochemical companies, one in particular, has been- You don't have to Well, basically, I'm just gonna say, I'll leave out the name, but the agrochemical companies, one in particular, has been- You don't have to leave out the name.

Yeah. Basically what we uncover on film is how Monsanto has effectively been secretly microfinancing most of the university agricultural curriculum in this country for 40 years. Now, we uncover the money pipeline. Because if you think about it, if Monsanto or anyone wanted to write, you know, whatever,

a $75 million check to university, like whatever, Texas A&M or UT or something, people would know. If they wanted to write, you know, 10, seven and a half million dollar checks, people would know. Even a $750,000 check, people would take notice. But no one's looking at 10, 20, 30, $50,000 checks. Yeah, so they're doing it slowly, slowly.

So you just feed the system, and then you buy the best science money can buy. And then the congressional lawmakers allow it to go through because listen, I mean, I'm not defending their practices, but think about this from a numbers perspective. There's 23, you would know this better than me because you really are the policy guy. There's 23 agrochemical lobbyists per member of Congress.

Yeah, that's crazy. So think about it. So you're a congressional lawmaker, right? Hey, Mark, listen, man, why, let's just go to the Bahamas this weekend, we've got a great house down there, my wife and I, you know, your wife's gonna look really great in this mean coat we got from, you know, whatever, sacks, or whatever it is.

And so, from a numbers perspective, that's two people a month that are coming at you for something, well, even if it only takes up a week or two, a month, think about how much noise that is as a lawmaker. No, no, they really hear from industry. They don't really hear from people like you and I. And that's why it makes a difference.

And when we go in, they go, wow, I didn't really understand this, and I didn't know about this. And the level of awareness and education is very low. And once they start to hear the stories, like, you start to shift. Now that's why we have this change. And it's amazing.

Listen, this is all not doom and gloom. This is really powerful stuff. And it has to, and the policies have to happen. You know, one of the things that you're talking about, just to give people context, is land grant colleges, which were established by Abraham Lincoln to build, you know, a curriculum for building an agricultural nation.

And so these land grantgrant colleges are funded in large part by the government, but they're also funded by agrochemical companies who are highly influential in determining what the science they do and what the studies they do are and what the results are and so what the curriculum is because then the students of these land-grant colleges come out thinking that

industrial farming is the only way to go. And I was talking to Michael Pollan recently about this. And he was like, when I wrote Omnibor's Dilemma, I was supposed to give a talk at Caltech and they canceled my talk because one of the ranchers who's in a cafe, industrial meat farming, meat factory basically, funded huge amounts of money to Caltech and he just said he can't come.

And they. Yeah, that's the kind of stuff that goes on. And this sort of. Right under our noses. But not for much longer. Speaker Johnson is a Louisiana boy like I am. There are a lot of people from a lot of small towns who get this.

And the farmers are. I don't know if you know Fred Provenza. Do you know Fred Provenza? He's an amazing guy. He studied behavioral ecology and looked at animals and plants and soil and humans. He's an's incredible, wrote a book called Nourishment, which everybody should get. He's been on the podcast a couple of times.

Oh, I gotta read this book. And he's talking about how he was going around teaching about this to farmers and then it used to be like one or two people in the room and now it's just filled. And the farmers and the ranchers are desperate to change because they see the failure of the system, the failure to the system,

the failure of the ability to actually make money, to make a living, and they're struggling. And they understand that something's broken and they're looking for a different way. By the way, that was another thing. You know it, you do it too. We're formulators, right? So when we were building out the formulas

for the absorption company, we started with just four use cases, right? It was restore, calm, which really chills people out, and it just gets you to that place where it quiets the noise, and I needed that too. Energy, which is I live on, and then sleep. And the reason we started with those four things was how can we get people to have better days so that they have better weeks, they have better months, and then eventually those months string out into years,

and then the years string out into a lifetime. And this is something you and I've talked about at great length, happy, healthy people build happy, healthy societies by making happy, healthy choices. It's unimpeachable information, right? So again, man, it goes back to, and I'm putting together this amazing program for farmers

where I'm gonna start sending these to a lot of these hardworking farmers because you just, like, you feel the lift and better sleep, especially when you're stressed about crops, finances, all that stuff, you need to get that good sleep. So I'm doing this program and I'm gonna put some spend behind it where I just get it to farmers.

Just get it to people who are busting their asses in the field. If you've ever been on a combine or if you've ever been on a harvester at 5.30 in the morning, after you couldn't sleep all night, and this is now three, four weeks in a row, you start to deplete in a way. Listen, a very dear brother of mine is building a bank,

and I was really fortunate enough to consult with him, not non-paid, but I got to work with these Nobel laureate behavioral psychologists. I mean, these people, they know a lot about humanity, right? And one of the things we were talking about was there's, and this is a term you know, because you're a doctor, eco-anxiety. Eco-anxiety.

It's a real diagnosable term at this point. And there's 27 million young Americans that are basically, think about it, you're young, you're trying to figure out what you're doing with your future. there's famine, wars, droughts, there's a broken food system, broken water system, broken political systems, everything's broken. You're going to college, you're gonna end up

with a $200,000 debt, but you're gonna end up with a $30,000 job. And so they feel this wait, wait, wait, and then they just end up doing this, and then what do they do? And it's eco anxiety. So the idea is to lift them back out of that, where you realize, this is what I always say to people,

it's not all doom and gloom, because I see the data, I know what's coming down the pipeline. We are actually about to balance our climate, we're gonna rebuild our food systems, we're gonna rebuild our economy, and we're gonna do it all through food Yeah, and that is the most amazing thing, you know, I always hear people like joke

Sort of like coastal elites talk about the flyover states I know for our state dude those states are there are the rock stars of the country Yeah, they're it's not just the breadbasket, they're gonna be the greatest biosequestors of carbon dioxide that we have. They're our life's blood. And the people running those farms and those businesses are our brothers and sisters. And they're crushing it.

And so what we're gonna do is arm them with all this amazing, not even technology, it's old technology, since it's old as dirt. It's a really powerful thing. I'm sure you heard Gabe tell the story, but he had this farmer who's been on the podcast, and he, we'll link to that. One of our greatest heroes.

He's an incredible guy who was a traditional farmer in North Dakota, spraying chemicals, doing all that for years, which is probably why he got ALS, to be straight about it. 100%, well I can't say 100%. You know, he had all these bad years of drought and hail. Five years of hell. It was just a mess, and then somehow he got

Thomas Jefferson's journals about farming practices, and started to incorporate some of these practices that- Isn't that amazing? Yeah, I was like, restored his farm and restored the soil and he's such a hero and he's really a key part of these films, Kiss the Ground and Common Ground, which everybody really should see. You gotta see these films.

They're really powerful moving films to help you understand what the food system is, why it's broken, why it starts on the farm and the soil, and how if we change that, we change everything. Change everything. We are kind of linking all together, but not only do we restore the soil ecosystems, restore biodiversity, protect our water resources,

not only do we prevent the chemical pesticides that are harming humans, but we also produce food that's more nutritious, solves a lot of our chronic disease epidemic. We help the farmers have more economic kind of health and wealth. And inclusive of the farmers. You know, by the way, you're not even thinking,

we haven't even touched on the fact of the social dynamics and the ethnicity of farming. You know, the amount of young farmers coming into the fold, indigenous, black, brown, you know, purple, like it doesn't matter who you are. And one of the more exciting things is too, the indigenous cultures are about to thrive. You know, a lot of these reservations

are gonna become these regenerative giants. Yeah. Going back to their indigenous practices and allowing them to make a ton of money. And, um, uh, man, who was I just talking to? He's amazing. Such a powerhouse. But, um, you know, I want to say in 1930, I'll have to go back. I've, I have such dad brain, dude, I was up every hour. You got little kids. Every hour on the hour last night with my son screaming into the monitor

because he's not feeling great. But I think in 1930, there were a million black farmers. And now there's 50,000. And now they're coming back and they're bringing this incredible indigenous knowledge that they have into the food system and thriving and growing. And that's what makes America so incredible. When we all come together,

I'm not trying to sound like some cliche out of some like newspaper clipping. When we all come together and we lift each other up, that's when we win. And getting farmers off the drip of the agrochemicals, we all come together and we lift each other up, that's when we win. And getting farmers off the drip of the agrochemicals, and then the other side of my life is keeping them fueled with things that actually work.

Jeez, dude, like the future is bright, get your sunglasses. And you're doing this, like you're living this, you have a farm, you have animals and you grow food and tell us about your kind of what. My wife, she's the animal whisperer. It's like Green Acres, you went from like Hollywood. Beverly Hillbillies, yeah, Green Acres. But it's.

That's dating me actually. I used to watch that. This is why I called my mom on the way here to thank her for that base. And one of the things is too, I realized we can't build a great society without unbelievably well-rounded, grounded children. My experience as a child,

I had the big, my farming uncle and aunt cousins were very successful. They were the ones that always had all the money. It's also where my love of flying came from because he had Beechcraft aircraft that, the aircraft that I used to fly in and that's where I got my great love of flying. But yeah. You died in a Be that's my great love of flying. But yeah.

You died in a beach craft and lost. I know, I was like. I felt so bad. I was always saying to you before we were rolling, I said that to J.J. Abrams and Damon. I was like, guys, this is embarrassing. I fell 30,000 feet out of an Elton 11 and survived. And then I fell 30 feet out of a beach craft and died.

But you know, those experiences as children, now I'm 46 in a month and change. Yeah, yeah. All of those systems that I was exposed to are now playing out. Supplements, health and wellness. I have a whiskey company, a lot of connection

to bourbon in the South and the familial component. But that also spans, that's into my agriculture side. Between my wife and I, she's got jewelry that she created this closed loop, you know, basically completely sustainable model for luxury jewelry, crushed it. Launched, did their first deal with Michael Dell, and it just crushed it.

Well, he had all this gold because Michael Dell just said, hey, listen, all of these computers and landfills and my name on it fixed this. So he started using a hot water process to extract, all sustainable, but to extract all the heavy metals from microprocessors and gold and silver and stuff. And they end up with all this gold and they didn't know what to do with it.

So my wife, so Nikki Reed at like 27 years old, 28 years old, calls Michael Dell and says, I know what you can do with that gold. You're gonna give it to me. You're gonna sign a multi-year deal with me. I'm gonna build a sustainable luxury jewelry line out of it, and it's gonna sell out in like a week. So they did that.

She went to CES, the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, representing Dell. That's crazy. On a stage, and it sold out, the whole collection sold out in 36 hours. So that's when they knew, so she created that whole system, much like we did with building a regenerative whiskey company and now we have Absorbed.

So we have these two parents that came from the entertainment world, by the way, our daughter still doesn't know what we do. Who are now between two parents, yeah right, two parents running, building three companies simultaneously, very successful companies, simultaneously, which I'm gonna do 110 flights this year. I am your model, I'm your anti-model patient.

I am, you know, my adrenal, my system is broken down. And to be honest with you, it's not like some shameless plug. Because you're working too hard. But I wouldn't be able to do what I do had I not built this company. Yeah. If I didn't have the absorption company,

I'm not even kidding, there is no possible way you could do what I do and then still get up and maneuver at this level and pace. You got a farm, you got kids, you got a prison film. Oh man, 26 animals or something crazy like that. And you know, we just released, my wife, we just released, we just got another, introduced another horse into the herd yesterday

and so worried that they were treating him well throughout the night, you know. The other horses. The other horses, yeah. And they did, fortunately, checking on him early this morning. But like our daughter, rather than worrying about eco-anxiety

or some digital BS, that was her biggest worry last night, was is our horse gonna be okay? And I'm gonna check on him in the morning before school. And you know what I mean? Like that's connected to nature. To these incredible beings. That's the set of what we need.

Our kids are so not connected to nature. There's like nature deficit disorder, not ADD. But exactly, but that's about to change, Dr. Mark. What we're doing, when we launch common ground You know we repackage kiss the ground now common ground is going out this film changes lives and With your help and your hard work and ours were changing policy And this is what I said in in Vegas Vegas sorry DC very similar yeah

in a way, but that's what I just said in DC, which is, because anytime you go and you do all the circuit in DC, it's all about policy. It's policy, it's policy, it's policy. Yeah, policy is important, but this isn't just about policy. This is about good policy, helping good people. And that's where we win. And that's what I said.

Well, so yeah, the triple win. There's money to be made. The earth wins, the farmers win, people win, the government wins. Everybody wins because when more people make more money, they pay taxes rather than just a few big agrochemical companies that don't pay any taxes, most likely.

This is how we build our society. This is how we build our communities. This is how we build our communities. And with these systems that are so powerful and so impervious to, let's call it change within the government, they're just gonna continue because that model works. And again, I hate to say it, I'm not trying to sound crass. Money talks, bullshit walks.

You tell a farmer or a community leader or a member of a legislative body who comes from a district where people are poisoned, they're sick and they have no money. It's going to change. I stay so far out of politics. I literally, at one point many years ago, there was a small group of sort of like the New Guard in Louisiana that was going to groom me to run for governor. Actually it would have just been this past cycle.

It actually would have been this past cycle. And I would have been working on this for years. But we looked at the data and the data suggested just because of the vast platform. I mean, now no one wants any more celebrity. You wanna be very careful with celebrity politicians, probably would've won, just from a numbers perspective. Now, I would not wanna be in that position,

but I guess my point is, there are systems in play right now that are going to build basically the single largest carbon capture food economy in the world, from the Carolina coast to the California coast. And we are in it right now. And with the work that you've lent your voice to and how much you work and what we're doing together, this is the tip of the spear.

And it's amazing to see all of these governing bodies from both different sides coming together over this. And it's just an amazing. It just makes sense. It's like when you just an amazing. It just makes sense. It's like when you lay it out, it just makes sense. It makes economic sense, it makes sense for fixing our ecological problems, climate risk we have, affecting our health

because of the food we're eating. So all of it can be solved if we actually fix the food system from starting with the farm. And I think you're right, in Congress people are starting to recognize that this is economically the right choice. Makes sense. It's not just sort of a good idea to have organic food

and not have pesticides, it actually is better for the farmers, it's better for their economy, it's better for the downstream effects on our health. The downstream effects are incredible. And it's a multiple layered win if we actually do it. And what's interesting to me also, I mean, is that private equity companies are now funding the gap for farmers to transition from conventional

to regenerative agriculture. Huge ESG component. Because they see that there's a huge return on the investment. Like Farmerland LLP, they're buying up farms, they're converting them to regenerative agriculture, they're seeing the profitability and they're like 60, 70, 80% returns on their money,

which is like what? You know, and if that's true, and it is true, then the whole system can kind of really, if we get the incentives right with policy, can start to shift very quickly. Think about those inputs. Fungicides, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer, and diesel. Those are a lot of inputs.

It's expensive. And that is what has been so amazing to see this shift. And by the way, again, I stay out of politics, but this senator, this Republican senator who will go unnamed, we had an amazing conversation. And I said, Senator, I said, I don't talk about politics, I don't promote politics, we're building this type of system.

But I said, I think what you're gonna see in these next few cycles is you're gonna start to see people waking up. Yeah, I mean, even in this election cycle, they're talking about chronic disease and the real environment of chemicals. But it comes from the legislators, right? And so, even in this election cycle, they're talking about chronic disease and the real environment of chemicals. But it comes from the legislators, right? And so, if you think about it,

a lot of these districts, especially a lot of the rural ones, whether you're an incumbent or a candidate, you're not gonna be able to go back to your district, a hero anymore, if you're taking agrochemical money. Because the younger voters, on either side, I'm not talking about sides, they're not gonna stand for it because they're gonna know too much about it. And Kiss the Ground and Common Ground

is that envelope that opens and shows them that world. And they realize, I'm gonna call bullshit on that. No, absolutely not. And I remember sitting there with this, we'll go unnamed, but this incredibly powerful member of Congress, right, sitting there saying, this makes sense. And I said the best thing to do is, you know,

find other ways to get that campaign, there are other ways to get that campaign money, and also too, when it comes from people, they feel more engaged. So it's gonna be in that more grassroots, because now with technology and stuff, you can trace where money's coming from. That's right.

And his eyes lit up, and he just said, oh my gosh. Like I just got chills, like my eyes are like tearing up. He said, oh my gosh, this is the future. And this is the guy who, you know, a lot of his campaigns were funded by agrochemical companies, and he realizes, this is the future, this is the fair way of getting the right people in the seat.

Well people see it, like Senator Boozman, you know, usually when you go to meet these senators or congressmen, you meet with their staff, and the senator pops in for two minutes and says, hi, he wouldn't leave me alone for 45 minutes, we just talked all about this, he was telling me stories about how he was seeing in his own community, in his own lifetime, and the center pops in for two minutes and says, hi, he wouldn't leave me alone for 45 minutes. We just talked all about this.

He was telling me stories about how he was seeing in his own community, in his own lifetime, what's happening in Arkansas with agriculture and with the sort of degradation of the farms and the droughts. Well, my uncle was the main, he owned the entire crop dusting, most of the business in that state. That stuff was sprayed by my uncle.

Isn't that wild? And now tell us about the new movie Ground Swell, because this is a sequel. This has become like a trilogy now. Kiss the Ground, Common Ground, and Ground Swell. So Josh, man, this family has, it's unbelievable what they. Josh and Rebecca. What they put themselves through.

Everyone got super duper duper sick, six, eight week recovery. Wow. has, it's unbelievable what they put themselves through. Everyone got super duper duper sick, six, eight week recovery. Wow, they're making film basically about that movement around the world, the regenerative. So Kiss the Ground was like dipping our toes in, letting people know that this exists. Common ground is the practice of uncovering how the agrochemical industry affects and basically controls the science and the laws. And then ground swell is the international global component of the adoption of large-scale regenerative ag. And what's crazy is, this is a number that will just freak you out. By increasing soil organic matter by 1% globally,

we will be at zero net carbon. That's insane. It's the most amazing. If that doesn't make you wanna just jump out of your seat, when you realize like, okay, look, let's just get down to brass tacks, right? Let's just, let's take the gloves off. Let's stop trying to, let's stop bullshitting.

There's a big divide in our society, right? Between what the EPA standards and all this stuff is. And you've got some people on one side saying, the rest of the world is not adhering to this. We're damaging our own economy to set these standards, but it's, we're a global system, right? Yeah, yeah. So when you sit at a table with Josh and Rebecca

and our team and you look at the data and you're like, look, everybody, stop fighting each other. Basically, if we have the system, we can't build scrubbers to suck carbon out of the air at a global scale. Talk to, you know, just read Drawdown, right? You know. But the biggest carbon sink in the world is the soil.

Other than the ocean. It's the soil. And so the idea is, is like, let's build systems. Not the rainforest, it's the soil. It's the soil. Let's build systems that give the soil the ability to bio sequester and draw down that legacy load of carbon. Because that's what people think.

They're like, you know what, if I just drive an electric car and use paper straws, the world's going to change. It's not. Because we have that legacy load of carbon dioxide in the air that's been there since, basically, since we started burning fields. Well, a third of all the carbon in the atmosphere, about 300, I think, billion gigatons or something,

I forget the exact number, but it's a lot. A third of the carbon in the atmosphere comes from the loss of soil organic matter, and that can be put back. I just moved to Austin, Texas, and there's a ranch right outside there called Rome Ranch, which is a ranch that was bought by this young couple that made Epic bars and they sold to General Mills, which then they got General Mills to

commit to a million acres of regenerating and training farmers to do this. They basically took a thousand acres and converted it into a bison ranch and a regenerative bison ranch. While the farmers next door are, and the ranchers are happy to get rid of their cattle because of the drought, this is a flourishing ranch. The soil and organic matter increased 6%. You said just 1%. Which is huge. 6% is huge.

Look at Gabe, 96 tons of carbon per acre he's storing. And it's huge, and they were able to sequester water. The rivers are coming back that have been dried up. The ground water. The navigational creeks for the settlers as they moved west through Texas. And you're also too bringing, there's a big migratory bird component to that.

Yeah, they were like bald eagles coming back and wild animals coming back. And it was quite amazing to see, and the soil was rich and the plants were growing and mice were healthy. And it was like, and everything around it was almost dead. By the way, that's why I did that deal with Mars, with Neutro. I mean, the Mars company is massive, right?

And people are going, what are you doing getting into, because it's actually a family-owned company. They're actually, they're super cool people. Well, Frank Mars, I mean, he's super into food. His medicine and phytochemicals and the cocoa, yeah. Well, so they have a pet health brands under their umbrella. And Neutro, it's a 100-year-old pet food company, but what they're doing is, until 2027,

they're spending five million bucks on helping their farmers transition. Because again, they look at their revenue models, they look at where their sources are coming from. People don't realize that even pet food is grown like ours. So if you can shepherd these, your farmers, your producers, if you can shepherd them into a regenerative state,

then their profits go up, your margins are better, you have absolute unlimited food for generations. Well, not unlimited, it's how much you can grow. And that's why you've got these big companies and that's why I commend Mars for doing that. I love being in business with those guys. They're crushing it. But that's the benchmark.

General Mills is doing it, Mars is doing it, a number of other big companies. Nestle, I mean Nestle's committed to converting a lot of their supply chain to regenerative agriculture. Paul Hawkins advising them. So it's interesting how this is all happening. And it's like, you know, it's a- Paul Hawkins, by the way, wrote a book called Drawdown.

If you haven't read this book, read this book. It's all about that gigaton of carbon legacy load and how we draw it down. Because people ask, they say, what the hell is regenerative ag and why should I care? It's just so simple. It's just the use of planned grazing methods and using living growing plants, agriculture at scale

to sequester enormous amounts of carbon dioxide. But the reality of it is the one thing that we left out this whole time, and that people when they hear this, they're like, no, it's impossible. The one thing about regenerative ag that you don't do is till. That's right. Our whole lives, all you like, no, it's impossible. The one thing about regenerative ag that you don't do is till.

That's right. Our whole lives, all you think about is tilling that soil. And that destroys the soil, microbiome, and releases the carbon. It kills the microbiome, but it releases carbon. The one thing that we do, because remember when we were watching Kiss the Ground, and everybody for the first time sees the model,

when Ray Archuleta is talking, you see the big, those NASA satellite images of all the plumes of carbon, that is when we're tilling. And then as those, as the crops are growing, you see that greens and blues come back and the oranges and reds go away. And every time I saw that model,

when you would play it back as a, in the model, there's like 25 cuts of that film, every time I would get teary, but I'm like tears of joy. Because then you realize people see that, it's gonna change their life. You can't unsee that. And that's like, again, it goes back to this, which is what I get through my days with.

But when we were formulating all these things, there are moments in there, we're sitting in these meetings, going through all this material and all these nanometric particles and stuff for the absorption company. And there are moments I'd look up and we're having these big, deep conversations

and look around in the team and people are genuinely moved. We have teary eyes thinking about when you get to help someone like this, but you're doing it, it's not a nonprofit way. I ran a nonprofit that I had for 10 years, and what I realized and what I learned is, and it's nothing against 501c3s,

I think a lot of them do a great, great things, but because it's so litigious, if you ever really wanna change the world, don't start a nonprofit. Start a for-profit that feeds all of those necessary nonprofit, not just initiatives, the actionable component of it. And that's what's so amazing, it's not just awareness,

it's awareness coupled with action that moves the needle. And people are always, we're always kind of floundering. And to a lot of young people, because you've got to realize like, Vampire Diaries is the, I want to say again, don't quote me on it, I think it's the 10th, Spencer you would know, I think it's the 10th most dreamed or viewed show in history of around that ilk.

Kiss the ground. No, Vampire Diaries. Oh, Vampire Diaries, okay. And so what I look at so many young people are Trying to find what they who they are and there's like this one little word That I realized that we're all searching for yeah, what's that? It's the funny thing about this word It's very elusive

It's the one word that can set you free It's honestly the most important word in the world other than love, I think. And that word. That's what I thought you were gonna say. That word is purpose. Purpose, yeah. Because if you think about it,

purpose-driven anything moves a needle better than something that's not purpose-driven, whether it's an organization, a company, whatever. But this is what young people are asking me, well, how the hell do you find that purpose? Because there's no formula, no one talks about it in schools or on the street or anything. There is a little bit of a formula.

You find purpose when you marry skill with passion. So when you bring together the things you're good at with the things you love, you find purpose. And then boom, your whole world opens up to you. Which is what you've done. It's quite amazing and you've really. Do you see what I mean? When you tell a 12 year old that,

or a six year old that, whether you're six or 60, at the end of the day we're all searching for purpose. Some of us may never find it, but that's literally what we're searching for. It's not just love. We're searching for purpose. And so you just sit back, look at yourself in the mirror

or the quiet moments where you're falling asleep at night or having your tea in the morning and go, damn man, what am I good at and what do I love? What is that thing that people say, hey, you know, yo Joe or hey Sue, you're really good at this thing. Find that thing. And I think it's changed so many lives

and dude, I get giddy, because I live in airports. So many people come up to me and they're like, you changed my kid's life. My kid was going to go to, and nothing against these amazing financial schools or business schools, but like, my kid wanted to go to Wharton like his dad and work on Wall Street.

And he changed his major. He's going to Texas A&M. He wants to be an agricultural engineer, switched his entire life. You're creating a whole generation of farmers. But that's what I'm saying, like dude, that is powerful. And I get so, I just like, I get so excited and I'll make a video for them and I'm with their parents

and then we'll send it to the kids and the kids are freaking out, all of a sudden their parents are super cool and they're sending it to all their friends. And that, man. It's gotta feel good. It's like what you do for us, I get to do with them.

So great. And a lot of the information I've gotten, I've gotten from you anyway. So effectively, I'm just regurgitating what you've taught me. Oh no, you're doing a good job. I mean, I just wanna thank you for lending your voice to this movement, for being part of the creation

of these films, Kiss the Ground, Common Ground, and now Grounds Fall, which is coming out soon, I hope. And really shifting the conversation to where we need to go in this country in terms of how we deal with our food and food systems. And the absorption company is a great kind of- Thank you, brother. Kind of point of the spear to start to get people

to actually upgrade their nutrition. And remember, you should check it out. Go to the- Just feel free to check it out. The absorption company is a great kind of point of the spear to start to get people to actually upgrade their nutrition. Remember you should check it out. Go to the website for the absorption company is. Absorbmore.com. Absorbmore.com. I mean it couldn't be a more proper fitting. We sat down in these meetings and even Spencer,

we were just like, what do we call this amazing thing? And it was just there clear. I mean, there's nothing else you could say other than the absorption company. This is about absorbing things and feeling better. Dude, I- And you've also got a regenerative whiskey company, a bourbon company, Brothers Bond,

which is, you know, alcohol for sure, but it's still, you know, if you're gonna drink, you can do it in a way that actually helps restore the ecosystem and the soil. Well, we just released, still, you know, if you're going to drink and you can do it in a way that actually helps restore the ecosystem and the soil. We just released, well, you know, obviously the Samuel's family, you know, makers Mark has moved the needle really and done amazing things with Salar with, with, uh, regenerate and with Gabe. But we just released our regenerative, uh, whiskey, um, that we make, uh, down in

North Carolina. And when you sit there with someone and you pour this with them and you're sipping it, and then you explain to them what it is and they look at this bottle and they're like, wow, this is delicious. And this sequestered more carbon than it produced. Yeah, it's great.

It's just such a cool, you know, people are like, well, you make vitamins, why do you make alcohol? I'm like, guys, life is about balance. Like, come on, I'm not gonna sit here and say, I am. It's a recreational drug. I'm, yeah, right? But I'm telling you, I am that patient that would show up to you, Dr. Mark, I need help.

I am spent out. I'm running, I'm building two companies, I'm raising two kids, a farm, managing a life and a marriage and companies, and I'm broken two companies, I'm raising two kids, a farm, managing a life and a marriage and companies, and I'm broken, man. My adrenals are shot, all these systems are shot, and the only reason I get to do it is because I own, I co-own a fricking, honestly,

it sounds so horrible to say, but it was time for a shakeup and effectively, this is a $55 billion a year industry. I think by 2032, it's gonna time for shakeup and effectively, you know, this is a $55 billion a year industry, I think by 2032, it's gonna be a $77 billion a year industry. And this is about to disrupt the entire, the whole category. But I wouldn't be able to do it without that.

And I want people to feel this good. Yeah, well thank you Ian. You're just a bright light out there, you're doing good work. I wanna come out to your pharmacy with 26 animals riding horses. Oh man, we'll eat some fresh food. And again, I say this to whether you're really young

or you're raising young ones or you're just starting out in that workspace. Health is wealth and it doesn't take a lot to invest that workspace. Health is wealth. And it doesn't take a lot to invest in it. You're not buying commodities on the market. You're buying a commodity in yourself. And when we break down these stick prices, they're like $3 a stick, right?

People go, oh, well, this is too expensive for a week supply. I think it's like 21 bucks. Money's hard to come by. So what we did was, okay, well, oh, this is the expensive for a week supply. I think it's like $21. Money's hard to come by. So what we did was, OK, well, this is the other thing I wanted to say before we go. This is the crazy thing, because you live in this world. This is the most unregulated industry in this. Quality matters.

Quality matters. And that was the thing we realized. It's less than 4% of companies that third party test. It's really about 3.6%. And that means you're testing the ingredients to make sure it says what it is in the label. There's no contaminants, security and potency. You're testing as a third party test and we publish that information.

Great transparency. Trust and transparency. That's how you build a company. Because man, it scares me what's out there. And so again, just take that little leap and make that investment in yourself. Because again, man. Check it out. It's amazing.

Absorbmore.com. I love you man. I love you too. I'm so grateful to be here. Check out those films and check out what you're doing. It's just great. We miss you on screen, but I'm glad you're out what you're doing. It's just great. We miss you on screen, but I'm glad you're doing all this great work.

It's fabulous. Well, we did just get the rights back to VWARS. But you get to be in the movies, common ground, and so you get a little bit of acting there. Oh, it's with Josh and I. Josh actually, he just came back from Brazil. And now he's getting back on a plane today to go back to Brazil.

But that's the thing, man. It's important work. This year, or this coming year, he goes, listen man, how does it, he's like, I know you left acting, but you have two massive feature films coming out this year. Kiss the Ground, which is repackaged, and Common Ground. And I thought about that, I was just talking

to my mom about this. That's right. We have two massive films coming out next year. So great. I mean, it's like. Yeah, yeah. I think everybody listening, you've gotta watch these films.

They're life changing. You have to. They'll change how you think, they'll change how you eat, they'll change where you're gonna abdicate. And they'll give you hope. Because hope is everything. Hope and action together. That's right.

Because look, man, it's scary out there. Okay. Love and purpose. Love and purpose, man. All right. Hope and purpose. Thanks, brother. If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it.

You can find me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to The Dr. Hyman Show wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on The Dr. Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center,

my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health where I am Chief Medical Officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner and if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic the Ultra Wellness Center at Ultra Wellness Center dot com and request to become a patient. It's

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